phillipabatzfandomcom-20200214-history
"Fan-cruft" is Free Advertising and Revenue
Death by Wikia fandom (???) I personally am an inclusionist, but if someone could point me to an easy way to search across Wikia.coms, I could live with that pretty happily. To give an example, I miss the "Akasha" and "Kshira" entries under "Fictional Martial Arts". Would anyone like to tell me where I would find these among the Wikias? That's an awful lot of work to maintain a Wikia for some rather obscure and cult-fan data (and no,I am not debating the fact that it is "fan-cruft"), and forming a community would be difficult. "FMA" might do better, but again, how many people would be interested in starting from scratch and maintaining it all? Wikias have none of the templates, bots, etc. that make for huge advantages within Wikipedia, and let's not forget that Alexa, etc., all serve Wikia Central rather than any of the smaller Wikis. If you'd like to be rid of the "fan-cruft", perhaps Wikias shouldn't be handed a piece of flint and a sharp knife, and then abandoned with an over-the-shoulder "Good luck, kid! You'll need it!". -- TheLastWordSword -- 23:26, 21 November 2010 (UTC) In case you haven't been reminded by Jimbo lately, these are hard times, and Wikimedia doesn't have too many winning Wikias to fall back on for advertising revenue, and isn't that the reason that Runescape.wikia.com, Starwars.wikia.com, etc. have had a 500% surge in obnoxious advertising -- because YOU'' NEED THE D*** MONEY!' None of the smaller Wikias has the necessary userbase (or tools!) to grow beyond the "promising but unloved seed" stage. -- 01:11, 22 November 2010 (UTC) AND YES THAT'S ME. --TheLastWordSword 15:42, 22 November 2010 (UTC) "Running a Wikia is Hard Work" For which no-one is paid unless they are WikiMedia staff. Why exactly should I work '''that hard to put food on your table and a car in your garage? This is a hobby for me, and a job for you and only you. Figure out the categorical differences for yourself, and act accordingly. Asking me to work at this as hard as you do, is essentially asking me if I would like a PAID POSITION. Why, yes, I'll gladly take a salary or wage which only requires me to sit on my desk-chair-wide butt and type all day! Why, what a physical and intellectual challenge it will be! If I get a hangnail, do I get danger pay?!? (VARIOUS UNSEEMLY NOISES OF AGGRAVATION) --TheLastWordSword 15:52, 22 November 2010 (UTC) Suggestions for Solutions Now that I've gotten all that off my chest, I feel obligated to the Community to offer some solutions. Here we go: # As the original and vastly successful (and profitable) Wikias were a response to fan-cruft accumulating on the Wikipedia, use this original recipe to duplicate their success; allow fan-cruft to accumulate to a critical mass of content and users until they believe that they have enough warm bodies and WikiMarkupLanguage (WML) skill on tap to make a new Wikia a viable endeavor, then boot the narbs out. :) # Have far more templates and tools available to a new Wikia then is currently available, as they are woefully inadequate to a small user-base, especially as they may not be the most experienced users of Wikipedia there ever were. # Have a place for such user-bases to assemble, and get their stuff together. I find it appropriately self-serving to mention some perfect places, either here or this page. These suggestions might give you ideas for other possibilities, and hopefully they may come up for discussion by the general Community. Thank you. --TheLastWordSword 16:29, 22 November 2010 (UTC)